The death of four-year-old Chloe Valentine occurred after the agency tasked with her protection, Families SA, took the “path of least resistance” and proves the state’s child protection system is “broken and fundamentally flawed”, a coroner has found.
Chloe died from horrific injuries after repeatedly crashing a motorbike she was forced to ride over several days at a home in Ingle Farm in Adelaide’s north in January 2012.
Her mother, Ashlee Polkinghorne, and Polkinghorne’s partner at the time, Benjamin McPartland, were jailed for manslaughter by criminal neglect.
South Australian coroner Mark Johns, handing down his findings into Chloe’s death today, recommended sweeping changes to the state’s child protection services.
“Nothing less than a massive overhaul of Families SA and its culture and training of its staff will be sufficient,” he said, adding that the government agency “took the path of least resistance and the whole history of its dealing with Ashlee is a history of drifting, irresolution and aimlessness”.
More than 20 notifications were made to Families SA before Chloe’s death from family and friends who were concerned for her welfare.
Many of those concerns were largely ignored by the agency.
Mr Johns described Families SA as “broken and fundamentally flawed” and recommended that laws were changed so that anyone convicted of manslaughter or murder of a child would automatically have any future children removed from their care at birth.
He said a child should only be returned to their parent’s care if they could prove to a court that they were fit to be a parent.
Mr Johns also called for a social workers registrar and recommended that all social workers with less than 12 months experience be supervised by senior workers when having contact with clients.
Polkinghorne ‘fooled’ social workers
He said she had a selfish lifestyle that prioritised her own interests above Chloe’s and, had the child been removed from Polkinghorne’s care, she would probably be alive today.
Mr Johns said Families SA should have used all the legislative tools available to help the child and called it “preposterous, frightening and concerning” that two social workers did not tell Polkinghorne that her previous partner was a convicted paedophile.
He also recommended that Families SA “urgently re-educate” all staff to rectify widespread misunderstanding in the organisation that a parent has to be consulted about any care decisions about their child.
Beginning in September 2014, the inquest into Chloe’s death has heard from 39 witnesses, including Families SA social workers and supervisors, those that made notifications to the agency before her death, and Chloe’s grandmother, Belinda Valentine.
Ms Valentine gave evidence that she wanted to take her granddaughter into her care but was not supported by Families SA.
During the inquest, Families SA chief executive officer Tony Harrison conceded that Chloe could have been removed from her mother’s care as early as 2008.
He said he was confident recommendations made by the coroner would lead to a better child protection system and the agency had being trying to implement changes since Chloe’s case came to light.
The agency is also the subject of a royal commission into SA’s child protection system after allegations surfaced last year that a Families SA carer sexually abused seven toddlers in his care
This story originally appeared at ABC online.
Top Comments
I wish I had a time machine so I could go back in time and give this beautiful little soul everything she deserved, needed and wanted in life. Loving parents, warmth, laughter, happiness, joy, peace, excellent health and an abundance of hugs and kisses, story books at night time, sand castles, swimming and shell collecting at the beach and milestone birthday celebrations. I bet she never felt or had any of these things under the care of her very own mother!
RIP beautiful little girl - I have no doubt you are now in a perfect world.
I am a senior social worker and I can tell you this case is a disgrace to the profession of social work, and there is no excuse for these workers conduct or decision making. But it's not surprising. Social work and human services in general are addled with inexperienced workers who do not want to take direction from senior ones, senior workers who are lazy and incompetent and ineffective processes of case review. I have been a team leader so I understand how difficult it is to supervise staff, they often don't like it. And there IS a culture of mediocrity where highly skilled and dynamic workers are ignored, bullied or just leave toxic departments like this because all the lazy, substandard ones want to keep the status quo ( which can include not seeing clients for months, not reviewing cases, not following up and just having an absolute lack of effective clinical skills). But when you have a new graduate with around a years experience suddenly put in a position to make life and death decisions, they need to take advice from senior workers and those workers need to have the confidence to intervene and review their cases. This should happen with ALL high risk cases, no matter how many years experience the social worker has. Dealing with the intricacies of people lives in concert with dominant theories such as harm minimisation and family unification often means that crucial red flags can be missed or excused and a fresh set of eyes is crucial. To be fair though, I am sure there are many wonderful social workers in this department, but the problem is poor leadership and professional development. Someone has to make the hard decisions. Yes case loads are often big, but that's life. You deal with it, it's not going to change. Case loads are big everywhere. There is no excuse for this absolute lack of professionalism and clinical decision making.
Do you think mandatory registration as is required for other allied health professions would help in ensuring/maintaining professional standards, skills and development?
Fantastic response - thank you for taking the time to write it. I agree wholeheartedly!